Unpacking and setting up in a new place is full of reflection.
It's been almost a year, but not yet a year, since the sudden demise of the marriage. Those were dark days last August, just as school was gearing up for my 18th year of teaching. In the beginning, Drew and I stayed with dear friends who've been like surrogate parents to me. While we were there a package arrived. The box contained an angel figurine, specifically, the one in front, holding the lantern.
It's titled "Angel of Hope".
Christine and her sister sent it. I'd had plans to meet Christine in person, the weekend just before the bottom fell out. She was in town at the time visiting her sister who I'd met several months earlier in a little coffee shop on our town square. Unfortunately, the face-to-face meeting never occurred because I was in pitiful shape that weekend. And then, this "Angel of Hope" arrived for me in the mail a week later. It remains a heartfelt reminder to me, not only of the HOPE I have in Christ, but in the beauty of God's design which enables us to reach out and impact one another in significant ways during desperate times.
My friendship with Christine began through an email. Christine had read my blog, and then discovered that I lived in the same Texas town as her sister. At the time, her sister was struggling a bit with Christine's gayness, specifically as it related to how to go about combining her religious beliefs about homosexuality with her great love for Christine. B (C's sister) and I met and I knew immediately that I'd found a friend in her AND in Christine. There was the connection you get with people that only comes by the spirit. And it was there, and remains, even if I never see or talk with Christine or B face-to-face in this age.
B and I have each moved from that Texas town where we met. Christine has gone on to become a
famous lesbian. ;) And, I still have hope for things to come and a little figurine to remind me of connections made here that are eternal.
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